business

A spec screenplay is a screenplay that was not commissioned by a buyer. It is written “on spec” (speculatively) in the hope that a production company will buy it and advance it to production. To the uninitiated this might sound like a pipe dream, but the spec script market exists, although it is not as

Hollywood’s focus on superhero movies and franchises is frustrating to both film viewers who yearn for variety and screenwriters who find it more difficult than ever to attract interest for well-crafted original spec scripts. This trend is the symptom of a broader phenomenon: Hollywood is more interested than ever in making films based on pre-existing

A reader asked me this important question, which I think deserves its own post. In essence, feature films are more valuable to a director’s reel than shorts, even if the combined running time of a director’s shorts exceeds that of an average feature film. The underlying assumption here is that the director’s chief goal is

Film clichés are numerous and stubbornly frequent, but there are a few that stand out as clear symptoms of laziness and cowardice. Whenever one of these clichés finds its way into a film, it’s a sign that the writer resorted to recycling narrative tropes that are either glaringly unconvincing or massively overused. Character A meets

I am not fond of CGI. It has gone from helping filmmakers tell their story to invading cinema with its sterile, implausible fakery. For the avoidance of doubt, by CGI I mean images that are created ex novo with a computer, not the compositing of multiple layers to create the illusion of a seamless scene.

Now that the novelty has worn thin and we can consider the issue with a clear head, it appears clear that 3D movies are a nuisance for the audience, add no real value to films and impose a number of cumbersome limitations on filmmakers. There is also a fundamental biological conflict that imposes a hard

This article deals with professional development for filmmakers: activities that will add value to your employability and effectiveness as a director. Find a good 1st AD, build a solid working relationship and learn as much as you can Low-budget independent filmmaking is famously tiring and stressful, but it wouldn’t be so ridiculously exhausting if filmmakers

This post is about planning and directing short films in such a way as to extract maximum career benefit from them. I wrote it specifically for filmmakers who are ambitious and strategic in their approach; everyone else will probably find it very calculating and career-driven, which is totally okay with me. The premise here is

1. James Cameron’s contempt for studio executives While shooting “The Abyss,” James Cameron became very irritated when a studio executive showed up in his suit and limousine, expecting to boss James Cameron around. Cameron smoothly slipped a diving helmet on the executive’s head and closed the seal, letting the executive flail around for a bit,

In this post I will describe how to choose the perfect cinematographer for you, how to attract interest from a large number of cinematographers and how to convince a super-talented cinematographer to work for very little when you don’t have much money for your project. I will also share some thoughts on the relationship between

The most frustrating and distasteful aspect of a filmmaker’s life is having to depend on people we viciously despise: those with the power to finance and greenlight a project; those who put hoops up for directors to jump through; those who endlessly meddle with our vision from their lofty position of power. But filmmakers can

Have you ever wondered why some films gel together so well while others go horribly wrong after a promising start? Mistakes made in the management of tone in filmmaking often cause the spectacular failure of films at the box office. This article is about the importance of your film’s tone. If you don’t get this

“Which camera should I use?” This is one of the questions I am asked most frequently, and the time has come to address this issue once and for all. First things first: camera shopping has nothing to do with being a filmmaker. In this post I will write about why you need to start shooting

Before you pour your heart and soul into your next film, make sure that you will be able to convince people to watch it when it’s finished! Filmmakers tend to be very bitter about the concept of film marketability – the result of repeated rejections from sleazy distributors and similar characters. That is a shame,

In this post I will provide a detailed breakdown of a 30-second Public Service Announcement (PSA) I made in 2005 for a competition. We shot the spot on a bitterly cold night in November 2005 in Oxford, UK. The spot is set in an exterior night location and we therefore had no choice but to

When you produce a project with your hard-earned money, do you have a clear idea of whom you are trying to impress? This post is a compendium of tactical and strategic tips for independent filmmakers – all seen through a frame of ruthlessly sharp reality checks. Who is your target? Whether they realize it or

Do you know what happens when you respond to an online job ad and submit your reel, portfolio or résumé? Your e-mail ends up in someone’s inbox, along with 200 others. You probably already knew this, but do you know what it feels like to receive e-mail submissions from 200 hopefuls in the space of

In October 2000 I was in my final year at Oxford University and before I had even finished settling into my room for Michaelmas Term I was eagerly informed by friends that the “Harry Potter” film crew was going to spend several weeks shooting in our College (Christ Church). I had never heard of Harry

“What are the top three qualities that a director must have?” A reader asked me this question yesterday on Twitter and it made the wheels turn inside my head – even better than coffee! I always tell people that filmmaking is a sublimely difficult art at which to excel, because it encompasses many art forms,

June 17th, 2012 – Today is exactly 10 years since the first day of principal photography on the first project I directed. I will celebrate by sharing 10 lessons I learned in 10 years as a filmmaker. 1. The director’s reel is king The one thing I am glad about is that I started on